Ri Sol Ju Goes Viral: What Social Media Reveal about North Korea’s First Lady

Over the past six months or so, international English-language news media outlets addressing the question of “Who is Kim Jong Un’s wife, Ri Sol Ju?” have only provided more fodder for the construction of Ri Sol Ju into a curious international celebrity. Since her confirmation as the DPRK leader’s wife in late July 2012, major news sources have continued to turn out speculation about the woman who is seen as an elusive East Asian celebrity. As the Guardian noted in an October 30, 2012, piece for its regular “Passnotes: A Humorous Q&A About a News Issue of the Day:”

Married? You mean I can’t have him to myself? I’m afraid not. She was publicly presented as his wife in July before an audience of high-ranking party officials and members of the military and secret police – “loudly shouting ‘Hurrah!’” according to state media.

It’s every young girl’s dream.I’m sure it is, in North Korea.

The lightweight piece goes on to astutely appraise her as “an important symbol, though. Kim Jong Il never made public appearances with his wives, but now his son seems to be moving towards a softer, more contemporary style of paranoid tyranny,” and finally deems her “ the communist Kate Middleton,” another woman known for little other than her station as a young political wife.

Some activists, journalists and critics allege that Ri Sol Ju is a red herring to distract from the realities of life for a majority of North Koreans, a diversion many outlets have run with, both English news outletsand South Korean ones. She now mingles with international celebrities: U.S. basketball player Dennis Rodman was photographed with her during his widely publicized visit to the DPRK last week.

The Social Network

While international media coverage might have you seeing her as a mysterious celebrity heralding a more cheerful, modern DPRK, in South Korea the public views Ri with a much more skeptical eye. Popular discourse here is much more controversial, grounded in social mores of what it means to be an ideal woman and wife based on a shared cultural history of familism.

Even more than news outlet coverage, aided by the ease of self-publishing through social media, many South Korean netizens have latched onto speculating about her identity or, in the absence of verifiable information, creating one for her. Out of 83 million fake Facebook accounts, 11 profiles are under the name Ri Sol Ju (리설주). An article in Maeil Business Newspaper (매일경제), the main South Korean business daily, selects the key attributes of these profile pages to highlight:

In some updates, she is tagged with First Chairman of the National Defense Commission (북한국방위원회 제1위원장) Kim Jong Un and former KPA Chief-of-Staff Ri Yong Ho among others, but otherwise there are no special updates.

Like his wife, Kim Jong Un also has myriad fake Facebook accounts, drawing comments and criticisms from global users. There is plenty of media speculation over whether one of these profile pages is authentic, but the fact perhaps may be corroborated by the Ireland-based web analytics company StarCounter, which said that Facebook activity using the IP address assigned to North Korea is ongoing. The Maeil Business Daily article interviewed Korean Friendship Association (KFA) President Alejandro Cao de Benós, who claims to manage the page.

[de Benós said the KFA] “is managing the Facebook account in order to confront most media’s propaganda and ignorance about North Korea.” He also said it “informs the entire world about the achievements and thought of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.”

To the question of seeing Kim Jong Un’s own Facebook page, de Benós claims, “He [Kim Jong Un] not only visits the page but also regularly communicates with us.”

While there does indeed exist an official Facebook page for Kim Jong Un, there is little evidence to claim the veracity of Ri Sol Ju’s pages. Indeed, one of the fan pages goes so far as to list her as a “fictional character.” Whether that is a claim about her very existence or the authenticity of the page itself, she remains an image rather than real person in the public.

Most of the fake Facebook profiles for Ri Sol Ju include her residence as Pyongyang and set her relationship status as married (top left). Information on the fan pages is a little more sparse, designates her as a “fictional character” (bottom left) or “political figure.” The comment on her profile photo, taken from a visit to the 2005 Asian Games in Incheon (right) says, “Beautiful!”

Trending on Twitter

In addition to her public construction as a character on Facebook, Ri Sol Ju has been a trending topic in Korean-language activity on Twitter, the contents of which are largely based on gossip. Using results provided by the social media analysis service Pulse K (펄스K), the South Korean PR firm Medicom (미디컴) analyzed the 22-day period from July 25, 2012, when Ri Sol Ju was first identified as Kim Jong Un’s wife, until Aug. 15, 2012. The total number of tweets during this period skyrocketed to 21,329. During the period of analysis, the day that saw the most tweets was July 26, when mention of Ri Sol Ju’s 2005 visit to South Korea and tweets about the picture from that visit reached about 9,000 in one day.

But the “Ri Sol Ju Effect” impacted more than just tweets about her. According to the PR firm’s analysis, there were about 2,000 more tweets including the words “North Korea” and “Kim Jong Un” on the day she was revealed to be the leader’s wife than on the day of a major announcement by Leader Kim on July 18. On July 18, tweets about North Korea numbered 15,653 and tweets about Kim Jong Un numbered 11,231. On July 26, tweets about North Korea hit 17,004 and tweets about Kim Jong Un reached 13,283.

Mention of Ri Sol Ju in the South Korean Twitterverse differs drastically from the tone taken toward her in English-language social media. English-language posts tend to use her to mock the regime, including meme-like “Kim Jong Un looking at things with his wife” photos, or praise of her style, notable for its clean Chanel-like lines that differ drastically from other photos and videos taken of women in Pyongyang.

In contrast, the South Korean social media activity is much more negative in tone, found Medicom in its analysis:

Gossipy news about Ri Sol Ju, such as her being a “divorcée” and “luxury products,” spread rumors of corruption. Some tweets about Ri Sol Ju during the period of analysis landed in the top 50 most retweeted Korean-language tweets. Tweets alluding to corruption comprised 87.0% of these tweets, those that were neutral were 12.2%, and positive-tone tweets were .8%.

The primary content of retweets skyrocketed, in this order:

Criticism of North Korea’s strategy of to improve its image with Ri Sol Ju

Criticism of Ri Sol Ju’s divorce and affair with Kim Jong Un

Criticism of Kim Jong Un’s involvement with many women

Anticipation of an atmosphere of reform and opening through Ri Sol Ju

Criticism of Ri Sol Ju’s carrying of a luxury handbag

The article cites two of the most popular examples of trending tweets, both of which are based on speculation of her divorce before marrying Kim Jong Un:

@lorlorbach: “Oh—Kim Jong Un’s wife Ri Sol Ju is a divorced woman. Hoel. Ri Sol Ju’s background information is recorded on the Chinese search engine Baidu. Using power to make her get divorced, no? I don’t know if she committed adultery and her ex-husband was purged. An affair I can’t understand. Seems like an immoral person.” (retweeted 692 times)

@0998bell: “Ri Sol Ju sudden appearance beside Kim Jong Un is the result of North Korea’s image strategy. Kim Jong Un’s trying to change his image, and in April coerced married woman Ri Sol Ju to live with him without a wedding.” (retweeted 316 times)

Who may create a public image?

As early as 1995 in Space of Indentity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries, David Morley and Kevin Robins discuss the powerful role of the global media in the processes of cultural encounters, leading to a media imperialism. “The media,” they write, “now make us all rather like anthropologists, in our own living rooms, surveying the world of all those ‘Others’ who are represented to us on the screen.” (133).

While postcolonial, Said-esque criticisms or feminist readings of the issue are certainly a very important issue that must be addressed elsewhere, for now, the idea of the ability to the entire global audience to analyze a figure in the media is only further complicated now, nearly twenty years after Morley and Robbins wrote their heavily-cited work on the media and post-modern geography.

Since the mid-2000s, the advent of user-generated content or user-created content (UCC) online has changed the way popular media is consumed. Because consumers can now interact with cultural products in new ways—via reporting, critiquing and reforming images, music, videos or texts—consumers play a more active role in what Jenkins describes as “participatory” media products, writes Henry Jenkins. This has led to a convergence so that media production is both a top-down process, and a bottom-up consumer-driven process, Jenkins claims.

With the proliferation of social media and its perceived influence in popular discourse, politicking, and consumer behavior, netizens have gained the ability to create virtual identities for public figures, both through comments released through SNS like Twitter or Tumblr, or by creating an actually profiles on Facebook to mimic the figure. This phenomenon is even more confusing in the case of Ri Sol Ju, in whose case the most official accounts release are dubious in their probably intention to construct a narrative for the Great Leader, as I have discussed at Sino-NK before.

A Crack in Which Wall?

Despite the relative vacuum of information about her personal life or alleged previous marriage, what can we really glean from these account fabrications or gossip mongering in social media? More than merely a distraction from the reality of North Korean hardships, social media discourse about Ri Sol Ju does reveals some important ideas worth considering, including international and peninsular attitude toward the North Korean elite. The South Koreans simultaneously praise her beauty and modern style but also remain skeptical, speculating her involvement in social corruption (her alleged affair and divorce) and economic corruption (her use of luxury fashion). The English-speaking audiences, on the other hand, see her as a fashionable doll of the North Korean regime, tagging along by her husbands side though looking elegant. More than knowing more about “Who is Ri Sol Ju?,” the internet-based discourse of her reveals more about the people making the constructions.

Darcie Draudt’s previous publications on modernity and women at Sino-NK: